About Magda Brown

Magda (Perlstein) Brown was born June 11, 1927, in Miskolc, Hungary. She grew up in a safe, loving home and enjoyed a normal childhood. At the time, Jewish people in Hungary lived as a whole in comparative personal and physical safety.

In March 1944, German troops marched into Budapest with Adolf Eichmann, who soon implemented the “Final Solution” of the Hungarian Jews.

A few weeks after the Nazi occupation, on March 19, 1944, all Jewish people were concentrated in a designated area, called the “ghetto.” After a few weeks, the ghetto was evacuated. On June 11, 1944—Magda’s 17th birthday—she and her family were crowded onto a railroad box car. Their final destination was the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland.

Barn in Germany where Magda Brown hid and was liberated by American soliders.

Magda Brown is a survivor of the Holocaust who is on a mission to share her story with as many people as possible.

Magda is a member of the Speaker’s Bureau of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center. Although it is painful to remember her horrendous experiences, she believes her story and others have to be told. The telling and remembrance of survivors’ stories will reassure those who doubt the Holocaust that it was a very real and frightening period in the 20th century.

In May 2013, Brown received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Aurora University.

“My hope is that through sharing my story, I can personally talk about the horrors of the Holocaust to remind this generation of the dangers of hatred, prejudice and discrimination.”—Magda Brown